Memories of Greene
by Mulderette
Summary: Carter reminisces after Mark's final shift in the ER.


TITLE: Memories of Greene  
AUTHOR: Lynne Facella  
CATEGORY: Carter & Mark  
SPOILERS: Episodes through Orion in the Sky  
SUMMARY: Carter reminisces after Mark's final shift in the ER.  
DISCLAIMER: All ER characters are the property of Warner Brothers, NBC, etc., etc.  
EMAIL: Mulderette@aol.com or Lynne1919@aol.com   
  
  
Eight years...For eight years he had known him and now he was gone, just like that. It had taken a little bit of time for it to actually register in Carter's mind, but he had seen the look on Kerry's face when he went back inside and the increasingly solemn expressions on the faces of his coworkers as the word slowly spread. Mark Greene had worked his final shift in the ER...he would not be coming back...  
  
The rest of his shift was busy, giving him little time to think. But once it was over and he was driving alone on his way home, he started to be swept up by his thoughts and was filled with an overwhelming sense of sadness. Mark hadn't deserved this. Not that anyone did, but...Mark definitely had not.   
  
Carter had been so very young when he had first come into the County ER as a medical student. He'd been Benton's student, but Mark had taught him so much too. He remembered his very first day in the ER. A trauma patient had been brought in, the victim of a violent stabbing. It had been the first time he had seen anything like that and he had bolted away from the bloody mess. He'd gone out to the ambulance bay and had gotten sick, practically passed out. Mark had come out after him and had talked to him, managing to comfort and reassure him, without humiliating him further. He'd said that there were two kinds of doctors, ones that kept their feelings and ones that didn't and if you kept your feelings you were going to get sick. He'd never forgotten it and it was obvious now that he was the kind of a doctor who kept his feelings. He still cared, sometimes probably too much. Today when he'd lost 'Blue Bertha,' he'd been quite upset by it, but Mark had been there for him once again. He wasn't going to be there for him any longer though. He wouldn't be there for anyone...  
  
So many memories...He parked his jeep in the garage at his grandparents' mansion and slowly walked into the house, still lost in his thoughts. The night of Jodi O'Brien came to mind. What an awful night that had been. He and Deb had both been there. They'd been so inexperienced, so helpless as they had watched Mark try everything in his power to save the lives of the mother and her unborn child. It had been so awful, so harrowing... Mark had been left in a state of utter devastation and Carter's words of admiration had fallen on deaf ears, because although the baby had survived, the mother had not and Mark had not been the same for quite some time after that.   
  
He entered the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, taking out a bottle of orange juice and pouring himself a glass. His mind went back to the night when he had been on a crazy night shift with Mark in the ER. It was in his second year and he had been taken off surgical duty and assigned to the ER as a form of penance for drinking while on duty. The ER had been swamped, patients everywhere, just crazy... Mark had taken charge and led the staff through chairs to treat patients, many of them right there in the waiting area. Finally they had gotten the ER cleared out. It had been an amazing experience and one that had always stood out in Carter's mind. He had watched Mark work, with his unique brand of compassion and intelligence, as he had assessed each patient and managed to get the chaos under control.  
  
Mark had been there for him through some tough times too. He remembered after Dennis Gant had died, he had had been carrying around an enormous amount of guilt. Finally the day of the memorial service, he just let loose, confessing his feelings to Mark out in the ambulance bay when it all got to be too much for him. Mark had taken the time to talk to him and try to help appease his guilt.   
  
Even in times of trouble, when Carter had screwed up, Mark had always tried to protect him. His mind drifted back to when he had first switched his residency from surgery to emergency medicine. A film crew had been in one day, filming the ER for a documentary. He'd been a little bit too cocky and had tried to handle a patient who had gone into cardiac arrest without calling in an attending. The patient had died and Mark had chewed him out pretty good in full view of the cameras which were filming. He'd felt awful that the patient had died and humiliated that the whole episode had been filmed. Later though, he had learned that Mark had agreed to a one-on-one interview about the time he had been attacked in the hospital restroom, on the condition that they not use the footage of Carter. He had truly appreciated Mark's sacrifice on his behalf, especially as he knew that Mark had felt very strongly about not wanting to discuss what had happened.   
  
Mark's attack...it was another thing the two had in common. Both had been attacked in the ER. Mark, beaten up by an unknown assailant, and Carter and Lucy, stabbed by Paul Sobriki. That's where the similarities ended though. Mark had changed after his attack, but had eventually managed to get through it. Carter though...he had pretended that everything was okay, when in reality it hadn't been. Mark had tried to talk to him once, and Carter had agreed to go to therapy, but it was all just a lie. He had been totally unable to cope with the pain and the stress of what had happened and slowly and surely became addicted to drugs.   
  
The drug intervention had been just about the lowest point of his life, but what had hurt the most was to see the confusion and disappointment of his colleagues, especially Benton, Kerry and Mark...people he knew had trusted and respected him until that day. Even after rehab, things hadn't gone too smoothly. Mark had pretty much been assigned to watchdog him, monitoring his naltrexone levels, accompanying him while he peed in a cup for drug tests. Carter had resented it and taken it personally. A certain uneasiness had cropped up between them. Recently though, things had finally started to get better, but now...now that was over. Now Mark was going to die...  
  
He shuddered to himself as he thought about it...-really- thought about it. Mark was going to die. He wasn't sure how Mark had managed to stay on in the ER as long as he had. How painful must it have been for him? To work on patients while he was one himself...to actually watch patients die when he knew that he too would soon suffer a similar fate. Carter had a huge amount of respect and admiration for Mark that he made it through this far. But now...now the end was near and he understood that Mark had other things he needed to do. At least he had his family, a beautiful wife and two daughters...those were the things he needed to focus on, the most important things of all.  
  
And now it fell to him... "You set the tone, Carter." That's what Mark had said. Of course Kerry was the chief and he was just the chief resident, but he realized that he had now been there longer than any other doctor in the ER. He had seen the way Mark had handled the ER over the years. He had watched and learned so much from the man. He knew in his heart that he would do everything in his power to help run the ER in a way Mark would have wanted. To honor and pay respect to the man who had taught him so much. 


End file.
